Whispers
by ArienUdomiel
Summary: Final part of Wavering series. Hoss' POV.


_Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."_

 _— William Shakespeare_

* * *

When I think back on the past six months, I can't help but feel angry at the Almighty. I know Pa's always said that things happen for a reason, and it's not our place to question. I just can't understand how taking Joe from us has taught us anything but pain and misery. I'm not sure life will ever get better.

For as long as I can remember, Pa's always had an air of authority about him. He stood tall and looked friend and enemy alike in the eye, not backing down in his beliefs. Now, he is a shadow of the person he was, and it almost kills me to know that there is nothing I can do to help. That's all I really want – to help my family heal, but there's nothing. Pa's voice has lost some of its power, making him sound much older than he really is.

Adam . . . I'd always figured he'd leave the Ponderosa some day. He's a smart one and ranch life don't really let him do all the thinking he wants to do. All of us have known that – I know he didn't think no one had noticed, but I could tell he was pining for other places when his eyes would just sort of lose their focus. I know he was seeing places and things I'd only gave a glance at during school. Adam wanted to see those places – not just read about them – help build the new towns springing up all over the country. Me? I was content to stay at home and, now, I figure Adam's given up on his dreams because he thinks he has to stay.

Pa's pretty much given Adam and me run of the ranch, and I wish he'd take it back. I never wanted to be "boss", not like Joe did. Joe wanted to be seen as grownup – to be seen as equal with Pa and Adam. I don't know how to tell my youngest brother I'd give him all the "being boss" he could handle if only he could come back to us.

I know Pa and Adam want me to tell them everything that had happened back on the Bynum ranch, but I couldn't. I'd given Roy that one statement and hadn't talked about it again. I don't remember a lot about doing it, but I have no trouble seeing the horror on their faces when I told them what had happened—especially Adam since I knew he felt like he'd let us down by not being there. I don't think he knows there wasn't anything else he could've done for Joe. Older brother can accept a lot of things in this world except that he's only human and can do only so much. He figures he should be able to do more than any of us or die trying—in his mind Joe died because he hadn't tried hard enough.

I can't help but wonder, too, if he blames me in a way – that I should've been able to stop it all from happening since I was there. That's something else Adam can't stand – failure in others and, sure as the sun rises, I feel like he probably blames me. Or maybe not, it's hard to say since we rarely talk anymore. Well, about anything that matters. It's hard to judge what a man's thinking from a greeting more suited to strangers than brothers.

I still can't wrap my mind around that Joe won't be coming back — that this isn't ever going to end. There are times when I find myself wanting to go and wake him up or some-such. It was a habit and a darn sight hard one to break, too. Not that I've quite managed it but maybe some day I will. I feel like most days are full of nothing but maybes: Maybe today will be the day that Pa finds that spark that used to light his eyes, or maybe today will be the day Adam forgives himself, or the biggest maybe of all: Maybe today will be the day Roy finds the men who did this to my family.

* * *

Even though I was angry at the Almighty, I still went to church every Sunday with my family. It wasn't like I wanted to be there, but I know Pa would have been mad if we'd given up on even this. I listened to the preacher going on and on, not really paying much attention until I heard him say, "a good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth." I heard Pa and Adam breathe in, sharp like, and I knew I couldn't listen to this any more. I couldn't listen to this man talk about how it was better to die than be born, not so soon after losing my little brother.

I couldn't stand it, so I pushed my way out of the pew, stepping over people and not even trying to say I was sorry. Mostly because I wasn't and wasn't in the mood to be polite neither. I could hear people talking low, and I could hear Pa and Adam following as fast as they could behind me.

Once I got outside, I finally felt like I could breathe.

"Hoss, what was that back there?" Pa grabbed my arm and turned me to face him.

I can see Adam, just behind Pa, and I can tell he wants to ask the same thing but won't. Little Joe would have just outright asked what was eating at me, but Adam wasn't like that. I used to accept that about him, that he was more into think than me or Joe, but right now, it just felt like he didn't care. I know, deep down, that wasn't it but grief does funny thing to a man.

"Pa, I can't listen to any more of that preacher and his sermons on death. I ain't real sure why he thinks he needs to preach on it so dang often," I said, not meeting my pa's eyes. I don't think I could stand to see the hurt and disappointment there right now. "People'er always coming up and saying how sorry they are, even after all this time, and I just can't listen to it any more."

I ain't kidding. I go in the mercantile, and there is always someone telling me how sorry they are. I can't even pull up into town without someone stopping me to tell me they're sorry and miss seeing Joe. I know Joe was known around town as the fun Cartwright. Me and Adam didn't mind the occasional beer, but Joe relishes...relished it. He'd do just about anything to get out of work and go have a beer. I always said he could charm a bird from the tree if he put his mind to it, and it showed in how many friends he had.

I turn to leave, and Adam grabbed my arm. "Hoss, you can't-"

I just shake him loose and leave him and Pa standing in front of the church. This is what I mean. We're barely a family these days, and I don't know what to do to fix it. I get on my horse and head back toward home, because I couldn't stand to be offered comfort for something that was my fault.

There's not a day I don't think about watching the Bynums get shot and Joe doing his darnedest to help them. I was supposed to watch out for my kid brother, and I couldn't even watch out for myself.

I turn Chubb toward the lake and head towards Joe's grave, and it just about kills me every time I think of his grave. It catches me off guard most times, because some days it's something little that reminds me of him. When it happens, it's like brushing against the edge of a sharp knife, painful and almost numbing, and it opens up the hurt all over again. I don't think I've ever cried as much as the day I realized I hadn't thought about Joe all day.

Once I got to the spot by the lake, I tied my horse to a nearby bush and lean over and pull the few small, scraggly weeds that had sprung up since the last time one of us was here. I sit on the bench Pa'd had made, and I shredded the grass between my fingers. I don't know exactly how often Pa and Adam spend up here by the lake, but I'd been up here nearly everyday once I was well enough to sit a horse by myself. I missed my brother like I'd miss a limb.

"I'm sorry, Joe." My voice broke on a sob, and I buried my face in my shaking hands. "I'm sorry."

So lost in my own grief, I ain't paying enough attention to know when Pa shows up until he puts his hand on my shoulder and gently squeezes before he sits down beside me. I'm kind of surprised Adam's not with him.

"Son, you know it's not your fault." His voice was as serious as I'd ever heard it. "Even if Roy never catches the men responsible, it won't ever be your fault."

I want to believe Pa, but the hurtin' in me won't let me trust his words. This is what I'm talking about. There was a time that if Pa said the sun would rise in the West, I'd'da believed him. If he said it, it may as well be law. Now? I wonder how we'll to find our way back to being a family.

"I'm thinking about "pulling a Joe" and looking for the men responsible myself," I said, not even thinking before the words leave my mouth. Pa gets as stiff as a pine tree next to me before the words are even finished echoing across the lake.

"Hoss," Pa's voice broke for a minute before he cleared his throat. "Eric…son, please don't. It almost killed me to lose one child, and I can't stand the thought to lose another. Please don't make me beg you to stay here. I never thought anything could hurt as much as losing Elizabeth, Inger or Marie, but I don't think I could live losing another son. It's not the natural way of things, to outlive your children."

The sound of the lake against the shore was the only sound between us for a good long while. The hurt in is his voice ain't something I wanted to hear again anytime soon.

Finally, I said, "Okay, Pa, I won't, but I can't say I don't want to awful bad, though."

"Remember what I told you and Adam? We're stronger together than we are apart. I know it's partly my fault since I haven't done as much with the Ponderosa and that stops today. I still have two fine sons, and I need to remember that."

"Pa's right. We're better together than we are apart, and we've lost sight of it," Adam said. How he's managed to sneak up on me and Pa, I never knew considering how quiet it had been.

"Roy stopped me on my way out of Virginia City," Adam said, as he took off his hat and turned it around in his hands. "He thinks the men who killed Joe were killed over in Arizona near a town called Prescott. Says they match your descriptions you gave him."

Pa and I both just blink at Adam, unable to believe what he'd said.

"Is he sure?" Pa asked, the sound harsh and low. It was said so fast that it had to hurt when he said it.

"As sure as he can be without seeing the bodies," Adam said as he looked Pa in the eyes. "He said they tried to rob a bank but were killed as they left town."

I felt the knot in my chest start to unravel and felt like I could finally breathe easy again, like the hurt and grief and shame was turned loose from where it'd been festering.

* * *

After that, as time went on, life seemed to get back to normal as it could be given the circumstances. It was like a weight had been lifted, and we truly started to heal.

Pa started taking over the running of the ranch again which was a relief to me since I could get back to the animals I loved, and I know Adam was glad to see Pa more like himself, even though Adam never actually said anything about it.

I don't think Pa or Adam ever really understood how close I was to taking off and looking for the killers myself. The Almighty taught me that, as Pa says, patience is a virtue. The Lord only knows what might have happened if I'd gone out in my own.

When Adam met Alice, he courted her and finally and proposed, and I helped him build his cabin for his new family. It was the happiest I'd ever seen him, I think. I knew, too, that he'd found new dreams for himself and not just the wandering kind.

The sounds of axes hitting trees echoes through the air as Adam and I fell trees for his cabin.

I stop for a second and wipe at the sweat on my face. "Older Brother, pass me that canteen. Why'd you have to pick the hottest summer to get married instead of waiting until it's cooler?"

"Because, Brother, I couldn't wait another second, that's why," he said, grin splitting his face. His whole face lights up when he talks about Alice. It makes me glad to see him so happy and almost carefree.

"How someone as sweet as Alice could put up with your ornery hide, I'll never know," I said, ducking the halfhearted swipe Adam aims at me.

When Adam introduced us to Alice, I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, but she seems well suited to Adam and am glad she can see past the walls he's built around himself.

Adam and I continue to cut down logs, chinking the gaps and turn a pile of dead trees into a fine home, if I do say so myself.

We fixed it up with pretty things for Alice – checked curtains, furniture, paintings - and a rocker and crib for when they started their family.

There was even a place given for all of Joe's dime store novels that had made their way into Adam's library. Despite his insistence they weren't "real" books, he seemed to have a fondness for them since they belonged to Shortshanks.

When the cabin burned and Alice died with the baby, I don't think I've ever seen Adam's eyes looks so hollow and empty. He leaned on Pa a lot during those dark days as he looked for her killers.

I think, for the first time, he truly understood how Pa felt after our mothers and Little Joe died.

* * *

There was one year I thought we were going to lose Pa. It started out as a cold, nothing to be too worried about. Then, Pa started coughing like he was trying to cough up his toenails.

Adam and I popped up off our seats when Dr. Martin came down the stairs.

"How is he?" Adam asked, always the one to cut the through to the heart of the matter.

Dr. Martin sighed as he put his coat back on slowly. "He's got pneumonia, and it sounds like it's in both lungs."

I sat down hard on the hearth as Adam swore.

"You're sure?" Everyone knew pneumonia was a killer - even people half Pa's age died from it.

"As sure as I can be from the rattling in his chest," Doc said, picking up his bag. "I've left some powders to help clear his lungs, hopefully. He's resting right now, and his fever is down somewhat. Come get me if he gets worse."

With that, Doc left and me and Adam were left with Pa and Hop Sing.

Adam and I took turns running the ranch and sitting with Pa, listening to that awful whistling click sound he made with every breath he took. Hop Sing, bless him, brought us dinner in Pa's room and helped with taking care of him with his herbs – making teas from purple cornflower and dried elderberry and willowbark for the fever that never seemed to break.

I could tell Adam was as worried as I was that the whistling breath might stop given how blue Pa's lips looked, and we'd be burying him next to Joe.

Weeks passed and Pa didn't seem to get better. He didn't get any worse, but he never seemed to turn a corner to getting well. Between chores, running the ranch, and taking care of Pa, Adam and me were just about to meet ourselves coming most days.

Finally, one day, he started to get better only to relapse after trying to do too much, and it felt like we were losing the war against the enemy.

It took two months before Pa was well and almost six for him to finally be himself again and not getting too worn out from just sitting up.

I thanked God everyday for healing my father.

* * *

"Pa, you know I don't have as good a head for horses like Joe," I said over the breakfast table.

Pa didn't say anything for a few minutes. The clinking of forks on plates the only sound in the room.

"You have a better head for it than you think. You just have to trust yourself. I need you to go look at the horses Mr. Massey has for sale. I think they'll be a good addition, but I need you to go and be sure."

Adam smiles at me and salutes me with the eggs on his fork. "Look at it this way – you'll be getting out of chores!"

Used to be, Pa'd send me and Adam, but he'd taken to only sending one of us off on business, as if he were keeping us safe by sending us separate. Now, it felt like he was hedging his bets.

There was no arguing with Pa, and I got myself ready for my trip to look at horses like Pa wanted.

So, that's how I ended up in Sullivan's Gorge in a gulley washer of a storm. The rain started light as I steered Chubb through the gorge, and it soon turned into a downpour fast.

I could hear the water rushing towards me, and I kicked my horse into a gallop. I knew at that moment I wasn't going to make it home. As the water rushes towards me, I was slammed into the rocks sticking out from the rock wall.

As the water closed over my head, I'm more scared than I can ever remember. I see everything grow dim, and I close my eyes. When I opened them again, I see Joe waiting for me with his wide smile and open arms.


End file.
